During the 18th century, German noblewoman Sophia Frederica, who would later become Catherine the Great, travels to Moscow to marry the dimwitted Grand Duke Peter, the heir to the Russian throne. Their arranged marriage proves to be loveless, and Catherine takes many lovers, including the handsome...
Vladimir Dubrouvsky, a lieutenant in the Russian army, catches the eye of Czarina Catherine II. He spurns her advances and flees, and she puts out a warrant for his arrest, dead or alive. Vladimir learns that his father's lands have been taken by the evil Kyrilla Troekouroff, and his father dies....
Lightnin' and Mary Jones are co-owners of a hotel built right on a state border, used by divorcing wives so they can pretend to be in California while establishing residency in Nevada. When Lightnin' refuses to sell his share of the hotel to a gang of crooks, Mary is coerced into divorcing her...
When a young woman named Barbara Clarke has an affair with adventurer Roger Coverman, it causes a scandal in the Puritanical town of Salem, Massachusetts. After a meddling girl arouses their suspicions, the town's elders accuse Barbara of being a witch. She is tried, convicted of sorcery and...
In this engaging adaptation of James Gould Cozzen's novel The Last Adam, film icon Will Rogers portrays Dr. George Bull, a compassionate, highly regarded small-town physician who often prescribes a healthy dose of common sense! But when Bull begins dating a widow (Vera Allen), the local gossips...
Two families, cotton merchants in England and America, with branches in France and Prussia swear to stand by each other in a belief that a great business firmly established in four countries will be able to withstand even such another calamity as the Napoleonic Wars from which Europe is slowly...
Elinor "Swifty" Forbes and her younger sister Marjory are the carefree daughters of wealthy J. D. Forbes. Their mother shows no restraint over her daughters, so they live among the flapper set. Lester Hodges, a songwriter, is enamored of Marjory, while Garside, who runs a card room, is interested...
Mammy features Al Jolson as the star of a travelling minstrel show, appearing in cities and towns across the U.S. Jolson falls in love with an actress in the troupe (Lois Moran), but she loves another (Lowell Sherman). Sherman is shot onstage as part of a comedy bit, and it is assumed that Jolson...
Elnora Comstock is the badly abused daughter of Katherine Comstock, who blames her because her father was drowned while on the way home the night she was born. She finds her comfort with Margaret and Westley Sinton, a childless neighboring couple, who help her with her school costs, as does the...
Toni Le Brun, a beautiful Viennese singer, becomes the ward of the wardrobe mistress of a Monte Carlo nightclub. Her benefactor, however, is actually a baroness incognito. Toni falls in love with the handsome Richard, but as they prepare to marry, she comes to believe he is only after the wealth...
Refusing to join his family in their new social life when Henry Dillingham suddenly becomes wealthy, Donald Dillingham causes even greater disapproval by marrying chorus girl Ardell Kendall. Learning that famous sculptor Gustaf Borgstrom wishes to use Ardell as model, the Dillinghams suddenly...
A famous opera singer lost her voice when her son was born, and has drowned her sorrows in drink. When a murder is committed near her house, she invents a story in order to get herself back in front of the public again. However, the story she comes up with results in her son being arrested for the...
Calamity Jane is a tough and rowdy woman in the old West who owns a saloon and gambling joint (and runs a cattle rustling operation as a sideline). One day she hires a pretty but naive young woman to work as a saloon girl, and finds that the girl is bringing out the maternal instincts she never...
Rogers plays a small town banker in the 1890s whose chief rival is the deacon (Middleton) with whom he has traded horse flesh. Taylor is a bank teller who places a winning $4,500 bet on a 10-1 harness racing horse, making him Rogers' bank partner.
Virginia Perry, a former movie star, leaves her family and returns to Hollywood to make a comeback, but age has taken its toll and she is cast in small character roles. Meanwhile, her daughter, Betty Ann, has won a beauty contest, and heads for Hollywood. They end up in the same, film, with Mom...
In a deeply cloistered convent, nun Dorothea Wieck (Mädchen in Uniform) raises a foundling to be Evelyn Venable. But at 17, what if, guided by a kindly doctor, she sees the world and finds love?
